Category Archives: GTD and Lifehacks

24-hour Todo Queue

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Some days I hate that I have to coerce myself into productivity. There are so many little tricks I’ve seen to do it, such as Merlin Mann’s (10+2)*5 hack.  One trick to avoid distraction I’ve come up with is what I call the “24-hour To Do Queue”. It’s a MacGuffin, as there is nothing to it but a little psychological manipulation.

I use the trick to help me stay focused on the task at hand when I have a strong desire to goof off instead. I keep a piece of paper next to my keyboard. When some random thing comes to mind that will distract me from what I need to get done, I write that random thing down in the queue. I also write down anything that is useful, but also a distraction *at that moment*.

So by the end of the day I may have a list like this:

  • Check out what Megadeth is up to.
  • Research Happy Days “Jump the Shark” episode.
  • What’s going on with the Principality of Sealand?
  • Learn more about oAuth.
  • Research home inventory software.

The next morning, when I’m reviewing my tasks for the day, I pull out the 24-hour To Do Queue.  I can see that “Megadeth”, “Jumping the Shark” and “Sealand” were momentary flirtations but “learning oAuth” and “home inventory software” are worthwhile tasks. I move the worthy items to my real to do list. I discard the useless tasks and start a new queue for the day.

The trick is that by writing down these frivolous tasks, I’m essentially giving myself “permission” to do them, just not right now.  Tomorrow I’ll know better and ignore thme], but they are written down where I won’t “forget” about them.

2010 Groundhog Day Resolutions

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This year for my Groundhog Day Resolutions, I’m taking an idea from Chris Brogan. Each year, Chris uses three words to guide and direct his focus for the year. For me, I chose these three words:

  • Deploy
  • Serve
  • Connect

Deploy

I’m full of good ideas. Have I ever told you I invented XML back in 1994? Too bad I never did anything with the idea; I could be rich like Al Gore after he invented that Internet thing.

I have these great ideas, but often don’t deploy them into the development stage. Those I do develop often languish in the last 10% of completion. I don’t deploy them into the wild. I think they stay there because I don’t like to ship imperfection, and it’s always imperfect.

How arrogant.

It’s better that I deploy something not quite right than to never deploy at all.

The story of Flickr is pretty interesting and relates to this, I think. The founders of Flickr, it’s said, were working on an online game. One of the features they created was a way for players to share photos with their friends. The photo sharing piece got such rave reviews by the players that Flickr became what it is today. The game? Discarded.

Had the team built their game and not deployed until it was perfect they would have their big opportunity.

So for me: I need to focus on deploying. It doesn’t matter whether it is a code project, website redesign or blog post; I need to ship earlier than I do now. Or, I need to ship. Period.

Serve

The church we attend here in Indiana does a Weekend of Service each fall. The doors of the church are closed and services are cancelled. The congregation goes out into the community and serves. The impact is amazing, both to the community and those who have served. I want to focus more on serving others; both outside and within my family. It is important to spiritual balance and well-being. It’s an example I want my boys to see and participate in.

Connect

In the next few months, we will be leaving Indianapolis and moving to Chicagoland. It’s a big step for our family just as it was a big step moving to Indy two years ago. There are many new things for us: New schools and friends for the boys, a new territory for my wife, and a new marketplace for me. It is primarily about meeting new technology partners, networking, and getting to know the community in which I’ll be working. In Indianapolis, it took nearly two years for my connections to start paying dividends in the form of referrals. I would like to reduce this time in Chicago. Surely, they can use a good freelancer there!

We also need to connect into a church, community, and neighborhood. We are moving to Chicago for the long term and I want to make sure we’re embedded and get to know those around us. I’ll be looking for ways to connect with others in my neighborhood, community, church and marketplace.

The specific goals

I read an interesting blog post at the Church of the Customer. Ben McConnell writes about creating a 1-page strategic plan in the form of an info graphic. He believes this allows you to visually see the Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Tactics that will move you forward. In the next few days I will create my strategic plan for "Deploy / Serve / Connect". These will then translate into Groundhog Day Resolutions I can monitor.

You can follow a special Twitter account I’ve created to document my successes: @2010_3words

The Writing Practice

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I was reading about The Writing Practice over at Chris Brogan’s blog. It’s about how he takes little snippets of time where ever he is to do a bit of writing. (He calls that time quilting. Clever.)

One piece of advice he has there about writing practice is this:

Publish often. Another place where our practice falls down is that we keep tons of drafts of things around, but never publish. Here’s the truth: If it’s not out there, it doesn’t count as much. (Journal keepers, I don’t mean you. Put down the purple pitchforks.) Get your work out there onto the web, onto blogs, into the hands of other people, whatever. Get it out there. The more you publish, the more people will take swings at it, the more people will riff off it, the more you’ll get the chance to get feedback.

This fits perfectly into one of my 3 words for 2010: Deploy(). If I don’t get it out there, it doesn’t count. So this is getting posted right now. As is. Even if this post is 90% Chris’s content ;-)

2007-12-12 Groundhog Day Resolution Review

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About ten months ago, I completely stole an idea suggested by Dave Seah. Tired of committing to New Year’s Goals that were forgotten by mid-January, he suggested a new take was in order. Starting on the second day of the second month, or Groundhog’s Day, instead of the crazy first day of the first month, we can set goals when our minds aren’t caught up in the egg nog, Christmas Gifts and New Year festivities.

Subsequently, on the third day of the third month and the fourth day of the fourth month (etc.), we review those goals to ensure we’re still meeting them.

I’d like to cover two aspects in this post. First, the results of my actual goals as they stand. Second, my thoughts on this experiment and where it can go from here.

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2007-11-11 Groundhog Day Resolution Review

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Groundhog Resolution Review day is here again. Last month, I completely revamped my goals to more accurately align with the craziness going on in my life at the moment.

Previous Goals

Prep our House to Sell

  • Meet with 2 realtors to determine a selling price. 10/19. Completed 10/19.
  • Sort through all our junk to have a garage sale. My mother-in-law has been recruited to handle the actual sale, but everything needs to be sorted and moved to her house by 10/18. Done
  • Declutter for showings by 10/23. Late, but done.
  • Bang through as much of the Honey-do list of repairs as is possible. This list will most likely grow after meeting with the realtors. 10/23. Done, I think.

Look for a new house in Indy

  • Review listings suggested by realtor. 10/12. Done
  • Visit Indy and attend some showings. 10/28. Done
  • We have found, and made an offer on, a house in Fortville a suburb of Indy.

Business dealings

  • Touch base with my remaining contacts here to see if they know anyone down there. 10/19. Failed. Didn’t really contact anyone with everything else going on.
  • Create a networking website (with a minimum of a blog) for Indianapolis freelancers. 11/2. ???. After last month’s mention of “Indianapolis freelancers” I was contacted by Noah from IndyLance.com a freelance group in Indianapolis. Too bad it was after I had already registered my own freelance domain name.
  • Freshen up my business website. 11/11. Late My schedule has cleared up a bit, so picked up this task again.
  • Attend the User Interface conference in Cambridge, MA. 11/8. Canceled. Despite looking forward to this conference, I just didn’t think it was right to attend, leaving the boys in the care of others while both parents were gone.

Servanthood Leadership

  • Find one active way to serve my sons each day. In progress. I started strong, doing things like helping the kids make their beds or taking dirty laundry down for them, but sort of stopped doing things deliberately toward the end of the period.
  • Continue to remember that we must function as a family, and therefore its important to continue to do deliberate activities together at least once per week. Pass. We tried to do something fun with the kids each weekend. The Bee Movie is pretty good, BTW.

Be fit

I’m not going to set much of a goal here, other than keeping an eye on my diet.

  • Cut soda and junk snacks from my diet. 10/19. Failed. Halloween is bad, bad news.
  • Begin tracking dietary intake again. 11/2. Failed. I haven’t been diligent in starting to track my food again.

Write More

I’m going to start using my daily journal entry as a place to track these goals with more regularity. At the next review, I should have a nice bullet list to know where my successes have been.Failed. Again I started strong, but didn’t finish well. I stuck my journal in the nightstand during a frantic cleaning, and haven’t pulled it out since. I did keep a little bullet list of accomplishments, though.

New Goals

Only a couple of new changes here, otherwise I’ll keep working at the failed and “in progress” ones listed above.

  • Move? We don’t close on the new house until December 20th, unless the builder finishes up the remaining changes sooner than than. We though we might move to Indy and live in corporate housing after Thanksgiving.
  • Enjoy the start of the holidays. If we really are moving, I don’t want to rush through Thanksgiving and forget the purpose: Being thankful as well as spending time with friends and family.

What the heck are Groundhog Day Resolutions?

From last month’s installment:

The whole idea for moving New Year’s Resolutions to Groundhog Day instead was an idea by David Seah. The best part of the idea is a monthly review to see how the goals have gone and to readjust as necessary. To make it more memorable, Dave suggests doing the review on the day that matches the number of the month (2/2, 3/3, 4/4, etc.)

The GHDRR quartet

There are four primary followers of the Groundhog Day Resolution Reviews (that I know of). Below is a link to the others. I’ve posted to their October reviews; I’ll update to the new ones if I remember to.

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My previous claptrap on the subject:

2007-09-09 Groundhog Day Resolutions

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To quote Keanu: “Whoa”. Another month has passed and it is now time for my Groundhog Day Resolution Review for September 9th. Here goes:

Be Fit

Getting (and staying) fit can be hard to do. This month has been particularly challenging. I mentioned in last month’s post that I was having some issues with the software I was using to keep track of my food, it was just too cumbersome. I haven’t had a chance to look at any other software, so I haven’t been tracking my diet at all. That has made it much easier to make poorer choices. Items of bad choice are ice cream (I rediscovered vanilla ice cream with maple syrup as a topping) and soda, which I’ve been drinking again for the caffeine.

Turning to stimulants was a response to less sleep and trying to get more done. The lack of sleep resulted in my skipping more morning exercise routines than in any previous month since I started exercising back in April. Partially, I find aerobic workouts (on a treadmill) boring. I’ve also grown tired of my weight routine. The time to complete three sets of each exercise after an already late start has butted into the normal routine of getting ready and off to work.

This past week, I looked into Tim Ferriss’s post From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks. After two days using a single set to failure system, I feel as though I’ve been exercising harder than the previous 3 set method I was using. I need to evaluate if it was just a fluke from not exercising during vacation, or if there really is a difference in the exercises done this way. If the feeling of a true workout continues, I’ll keep his method of strength training.

I’m resisting my urge to build my own application for tracking food and exercise. I’m not sure if this is just a mental tangent I’m using as an excuse to avoid tracking things, or a legitimate opportunity. Either way, I just need to track things to really keep track of my progress.

Write More

The idea I stole of writing a One Sentence Journal was successful, at least the first three weeks of August. Each day, I write a minimum of one sentence in a journal, but this week, I simply have forgotten to write anything at all.

My blogging efforts have been improved this month over last month; although you wouldn’t know it by reading the RSS feed. Longer posts have been interesting me lately, but by the very nature of their size they are much more difficult o write. I have several sitting in the queue waiting to be finished.

Deliberate Dates

Uh oh. I’ve failed here… The Wife asked me to ask her on a date again. That means I didn’t follow up like I should have.

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Tim Ferriss digs the Caffeine Power Nap!

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Best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek Tim Ferriss offered his thoughts on forcing creativity in his post The Creativity Elixir: Is Genius On-Demand Possible?.

In his first point on timing the creative urge, he mentions one way to extend a creative work cycle:

I don’t believe that it isn’t possible to do more than 4 hours of good creative work per waking cycle. This can be extended only slightly by caffeine power naps (down a cup of espresso and then take a 20-minute nap) or “ultra-naps” that are multiples of the 90-minute ultradian cycle (I prefer 90 minutes or 3 hours).

For some reason, I never thought to use the ultra-strength power of espresso as I’ve mentioned my previous experiences with Caffeine Power Naps. Still, its good to see I’m in league with a best selling author.

2007-08-08 Groundhog Day Resolutions

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It’s August 8th (08-08) and time for another Groundhog Day Resolution review. David Seah, creator of the GHDR, sums up the whole thing in his latest review entitled Groundhog Day Resolutions Review Day 6.

Since I’ve been slacking the last two months (in posting an update, at least), I’ll get right to it.

Be Fit

Last Month:

Six days a week I get up entirely too early (between 5:00 and 5:30 am) and hit the gym. Well, the gym in our basement, anyway. I alternate my exercise routine between strength training and aerobic exercise. Traditionally the aerobic exercise has been brisk walking on our new treadmill. While I was hoping to be able to jog, I unfortunately have a bad ankle which has prevented me from doing so. On strength training days, I switched to less reps at a higher weight back in May. For some exercises, I’m still dialing in the correct weights.

For my diet, I have switched to a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet in accordance with my doctor’s recommendation. This has been easier to do now that The Wife is also watching my diet and purchasing foods that are better for our whole family. I was tracking my foods online, but the app I was using has just become too cumbersome for daily tracking.

The weight goal I set at the beginning of the year was to lose 30 pounds by my birthday. That day is approaching quickly (toward the end of this month), and I still have about 9 pounds to go. Unfortunately, that means I will not make my goal by the intended date. Ultimately, though, it is healthy habits I’m looking to instill in myself over an actual weight. Goal Status: Fair (Good on exercise, poor on diet).

This Month:

I will continue my morning workout routine. So far it has been successful. On the diet side of things iI need to do a better job of ensuring the foods I eat are within my dietary restrictions. For example, while shrimp are low in fat, they are high in cholesterol. Also on bad eating days, I tend to skip the tracking, which (I think) leads to even more bad eating.

Write More

Last Month:

Blogging has pretty much been out of the picture for me. Ever since I started exercising in the morning, I’ve found it difficult to make any other time for writing. I’ve continued to maintain a list of potential blog posts and have even done some mind mapping exercises to determine what I might write on a few topics. Alas, nothing has come of that. Status: poor.

This Month:

I’m stealing an idea from Gretchen at the Happiness Project, by starting a One Sentence Journal. I’m using my moleskine notebooks and making sure I write at least one sentence in each (one personal and one business) each day. My goal is to use this as a springboard back into the world of blogging. I’m one day into it.

Remember significant events

Last Month:

I called or sent cards to everyone on my calendar last month. I guess that’s a win.

This Month:

Keep on truckin’… This goal can probably be moved into a maintenance mode going forward.

Deliberate Dates

Last Month:

I might mention the night The Wife and I went to see Die Hard. Unfortunately, that was the month before. Time flies. As a family, we bought a bike rack and have taken the kids on family bike rides on local trails.

This Month:

Uh… I dunno. I need to make time, as usual.

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